The Possessive

My daughter — as if I

owned her — that girl with the

hair wispy as a frayed bellpull

has been to the barber, that knife grinder,

and had the edge of her hair sharpened.

Each strand now cuts

both ways. The blade of new bangs

hangs over her red-brown eyes

like carbon steel.

All the little

spliced ropes are sliced. The curtain of

dark paper-cuts veils the face that

started from next to nothing in my body —

My body. My daughter. I’ll have to find

another word. In her bright helmet

she looks at me as if across a

great distance. Distant fires can be

glimpsed in the resin light of her eyes:

the watch fires of an enemy, a while before

the war starts.